


Spaces In Between

by infectedscrew



Category: Dragon Age II
Genre: Hawke is Head over Heels, It's gross, M/M, Two fools in love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-07
Updated: 2016-05-07
Packaged: 2018-06-06 21:06:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,404
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6769894
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/infectedscrew/pseuds/infectedscrew
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There is a moment when people very suddenly and completely realize that they are in too deep.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Spaces In Between

**Author's Note:**

> Written for @taranoire, on Tumblr, who wanted Fenris and Hawke realizing how much they are in love~ (Time to vote for Grossest Married Couple in Thedas).

It was there in the laugh, the quiet but unashamed noise that fell from normally tight lips. He could see it, feel it, in the way a free hand moved to subtly cover the mouth that was fighting amusement. His entire being ached when very suddenly and violently he realized that they were all sitting around a worn table and instead of staying guarded and tense they, each and every single one of them, were smiling and sharing stories. But most importantly, he, Fenris, was telling tales like the best of them.

“Hawke?” Merrill’s soft voice chirped next to him.

“Huh?” He replied eloquently, having to force himself to look away from the vision across from him.

“You’re staring again,” she chuckled, tapping her forefinger against his wrist.

Hawke’s mouth tilted in a lopsided smile, meeting her knowing gaze. “I can’t help it,” he answered at last.

Merrill glanced to Fenris, taking in the relaxed shoulders and the bawdy joke he traded with Isabela, one that had the pirate howling with laughter. Her delicate face shifted into a private smile.

“Things are very different now,” she commented, looking back to Hawke. She tilted her head, considering. “Everyone is much… softer now. Is that the right word?”

Hawke laughed softly. “That is a pretty good word for it.”

“He’s changed,” the elf continued. “If I really thought about it, I can’t recall a moment in which he isn’t wearing his armor. And yet, I can see his hands now and I am not surprised. I cannot tell if I am making sense. Common doesn’t leave room to explain very well.”

Merrill’s quiet huff of frustration pulled another laugh from Hawke, but he did understand her. More than that, he was practically on the same line of thought. He could not pin-point the exact moment that everything had shifted. When words were not so guarded on either end, skin could be free and unashamed, smiles traded like a light breeze instead of precious stones. And yet, something very deep and intrinsic had changed.

A very soft, contented sigh escaped him and he finished his ale in one, graceless, chug.

“Things are damn good,” he stated.

Over the pocked and ruined wood of the well-used table, Fenris met Hawke’s pleased face with a questioning expression.

“Ohh, the Champion looks a bit tossed,” Isabela teased, leaning against Fenris. “He’s tilting.”

“You’re tilting, Rivani,” Varric pointed out amiably.

Fenris ignored the ample breasts pressing against his arm and the hand threatening to take his drink from him. He was frowning at Hawke in concern. He nodded once in Hawke’s direction, an unasked question.

“I’m fine,” Hawke answered. “Just can’t stop staring.”

Isabela’s hand paused and a sharp smirk pulled over her face. Even when she had enough drink in her to pickle half a country she could still find the ability to tease someone into oblivion.

“Isn’t he quite the vision?” She breathed, resting her head on Fenris’ shoulder. “I’m quite jealous of you, Hawke.”

“As you should be!” Hawke said, leaning across the table and plucking Fenris’ drink out of his hand, who only offered a token complaint. “I mean, how could you not be? A very handsome elf gets to have his pick of a very dashing mage whenever he wishes.”

Isabela laughed, pushing away from Fenris and waving for more drinks from the barmaid. She dropped her elbows onto the wood once her order had been answered. “Indeed. He could pick anyone in this entire Maker-blasted city and he picked you.” Her tongue clicked and she shook her head.

Fenris rolled his eyes, leaning back in his chair. “Perhaps you should have tried harder,” he suggested, lifting the drink Isabela ordered from the barmaid’s tray.

“Are you asking me to?” Isabela wiggled her eyebrows suggestively.

Meanwhile Hawke looked utterly wounded. “Fenris! Are you saying you don’t want me anymore?”

“As if I could ever say that,” Fenris answered without a single moment of hesitation or shame. “No one could compare.”

Hawke’s heart thudded heavily in his chest. Just a short time ago Fenris would have locked down and silence would have dropped over the table if anyone attempted any such conversation. Instead those green eyes were bright and sparkling as full lips quirked up in secret amusement before disappearing in a chipped mug for a heavy drink.

“Your mouth is doing that thing again, Hawke!” Merrill gasped, pointing at the almost slack, goofy smile stuck on the large man’s face. “It’s like Anders used one of his lighting spells on you, when your muscles go all funny.”

“That’s just called ‘love’, Kitten,” Isabela sighed, looking comically disgusted. “Next thing you know he’ll be citing poetry and climbing on top of buildings to scream to the moon about how happy Fenris makes him.”

Hawke’s jaw clicked and he made a thoughtful noise.

“Don’t you dare consider literally any of those things,” Fenris cut in.

Hawke blew out a breath. “Not even a little bit?”

Fenris shook his head, passing the half-finished drink to Isabela when she opened her hand for it.

“Your way with words isn’t as gifted as Varric’s.”

“I could ask him to do it for me.”

Varric snorted. “Absolutely not. There aren’t enough words in any known languages to describe the depth of your puppy eyes.”

“I don’t make puppy-eyes,” Fenris complained. He had never lived down Merrill’s initial comment. Three years running and that conversation was still haunting him.

“I didn’t say you did,” Varric hummed, looking deeply amused.

Fenris opened his mouth, glanced at Hawke and quickly closed it again. He pushed himself to his feet. “I believe it is time for me to turn in tonight,” he said as he pulled his gauntlets back onto his hands.

Hawke stood up quickly, earning a laugh from around the table and, most importantly, a tiny smile from Fenris.

“I’ll join you,” he announced, ignoring the collective comments rising up from the table.

Fenris’ brow arched to his hairline. “I should think so,” he started slowly, carefully and Hawke knew a comment that was going to hit him below the belt was coming. “I was planning on making a visit to the Champion’s home.”

Isabela whistled while Varric laughed and mentioned his stories. Hawke had to work to gather his mouth off of the floor. He all but tripped over his feet as he scurried around the table to join Fenris’ side.

“If the Champion will have me,” he murmured as they stepped out of the Hanged Man and into the muggy Lowtown air.

“No, he won’t have you,” Hawke answered and had to quickly amend himself before the worried expression on Fenris’ face was consumed by a guarded one and his night ruined. “The Champion totally and completely belongs to a certain elf. What you wish to have is completely up to you.”

For the first time that night, silence dropped over the two of them. For a second Hawke feared that he might have overstepped himself. Perhaps he had been reading too much into it and had spoken the wrong words.

In the end he needn’t have feared. One of the rare smiles that Fenris offered only to Hawke slid over his lips. It was one of those smiles that promised Hawke the world and stars if he need only ask. When he saw it he knew that the Fade itself could rip a hole in the sky and he would still have someone by his side to see him through the end of the world.

The cool metal of Fenris’ gauntlet curled over his neck until his calloused palm rested against his jaw.

“Isabela’s right, you are a bit tossed,” he joked before he rocked up on his toes and pressed his lips to Hawke’s.

There it was in the touch of soft lips to chapped ones. It was there in the way the gauntleted fingers curled in his hair, tight as if worried that he would be lost if they let go. He could feel it in the way a free hand moved to gently curl over the hand that so often held a staff; not afraid but confident in the strength that hand could offer.

Never, in his life, did Hawke think that he would ever give his life and soul so completely. Yet, here he was and he wouldn’t change it for all the magic in the world.


End file.
